“Agent Vale,” he said casually, “I do believe you’re lying to me.”

Her gut lurched. “I’m not. I worked all night at each of the hard drives. His shit is well protected.”

“You’ve never needed a few days to complete a task.”

“I do now.”

A weighty silence.

“I want that file on Friday. Find the bastard.”

She ended the call without saying good-bye, and hung her head. The urge to phone Michael again was overwhelming, but she’d had no success so far and she didn’t see that changing. She couldn’t give SHADO’s code for an emergency when she didn’t even know if there was an emergency.

Soon, very soon, she was done.

A true nightmare this time, not a memory.

He was lost, stumbling along a dried, barren lake bed.

Well, barren except for the fish. Miles of fish, as far as the eye could see, mouths gaping, gills expanding, as they struggled for breath that would never come. Eyes popping out. Staring. Scaly, stinky bodies baking in the scorching heat.

Mesmerized, he halted and stared down at one of the dying fish.

“Join us in the boneyard,” it said. “You belong here.”

He stumbled backward, intending to run. But his feet were stuck, sinking into the ground…

“No!”

“No!” Jude shot upright, gasping. Horrible images from his sleep gave way to blessed reality and he shuddered, willing them to abate.

“Jesus Christ, what was that?”

The virus, or whatever, must’ve really done a number on him.

After he showered and dressed, he felt much better, weird fucking nightmare aside. Almost human. The dizziness and nausea of yesterday’s attack were gone, and he wasn’t hurting as much. He was more tired of lying around than he was from the twenty-four-hour bug he’d gotten, and he was ready to do something. Anything.

Liam had stopped in his room earlier and told Jude he’d be out by the pool if he was needed, so Jude headed there first. Might as well ask his friend a question while it was on his mind.

“Hey, man!” Liam called out. “Damn, you look a zillion times better than yesterday.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said, poking fun at his lack of sight. “But I’m up and around, at least.”

“Pull up a chair.”

Jude found one without too much problem. Liam had stopped jumping up to help him weeks ago, letting him learn to cope. He sat and got right to the point.

“Do you recall when you brought me home after the accident?”

“Jesus, like I could forget. Why do you want to talk about that?”

“I don’t. I just want to know if you remember what you did with the clothes I had on that day.”

His friend paused, then asked slowly, “Why would you want to know?”

“I’ve lost my grandfather’s lighter. You know, the antique I used to carry around in my pants pocket?”

“Oh. Well, I suppose it’s probably in your closet. When you had the accident, you were coming home from one of your trips and had a duffel bag. I tucked away everything you had on you into the bag and stuck it on the top shelf.”

“All right, I’ll search there. Thanks.”

“You’re not going to start smoking again, are you?”

“Is that why you hid it from me?” He ribbed his friend. “You were afraid I’d resume the habit?”

“I did not hide it! Not on purpose.”

“I know you didn’t. I’m kidding.” He sat back, soaking up the sunshine. “Anyway, the lighter is sentimental. It’s all I have left of Pop.”

“I’ll help you look if you want.”

“I can check the closet. If it’s not there, I’ll take you up on the offer.”

“Sure.”

Something else was bothering him. “Is Lily okay with what happened between the three of us? She’s made herself pretty scarce around me,” he said, worried. He could’ve sworn they had a real connection going. That she felt the same things he did.

“As far as I know, but…”

“But?”

“You’re right. She has been sort of quiet. Now that you mention it, she’s been disappearing for stretches of time, like an hour or so,” Liam said thoughtfully. “I saw her talking on her cell phone in the gardens, too. When she came back, she seemed distant. Almost like she was someone else.”

The back of Jude’s neck prickled. “Did she mention who she was talking to or what the conversation was about?”

“No, and I didn’t want to pry. She’s not exactly keen on discussing her life outside of here.”

“That’s not so unusual. Plenty of folks don’t want to air their laundry.” He thought back. “I did get that her father is dead, though.”

“Really? That’s too bad.”

“Yeah.” Jude stood, grimacing at the leftover ache in his body. “Well, I’m going to go poke around for that lighter, since I’ve got nothing better to do.”

“You could paint, now that the glass guys are finished replacing the window and the mess is cleaned up.”

He shook his head. “Later. I think my muse packed and left for the Congo.”

“You’re just in a slump. It’ll come back, my friend.”

He really didn’t think so, but didn’t want to upset Liam any more. “Probably. Enjoy your soak.”

Inside, he went back to his room and headed into the closet. The top shelves were high, barely reachable, but he managed to feel around, discarding several containers. At last, his fingers brushed a bag with handles and he grabbed it, dragged it down.

He didn’t remember the bag, or what he’d been wearing the day Liam was allowed to bring him home. Didn’t recall much of those black days at all.

Except wishing he were dead.

Now he just wanted to find his balance, his place in a world turned upside down. He had no clue what Pop’s lighter had to do with that or why it would make him feel better to hold it again, but the drive to find it was an itch under his skin.

Tossing the duffel on the bed, he sat down, unzipped it, and stuck a hand inside, checking the contents. A belt, something cotton. The material had arms-a T-shirt. A pair of sunglasses. A pair of jeans. He sniffed the clothing and detected a hint of fabric softener. They smelled clean, and he guessed these were extra clothes from his last mysterious trip. The pockets were empty and he laid them aside.

He continued fishing and found another set of clothes. Slacks of some kind and a button-up shirt. These were rumpled, smelled a bit musty. Liam should have given these to the housekeeper to launder, but he doubted his friend had been any more eager to deal with what had happened than Jude had been.

The shirt’s pockets were empty, as were the pants. At the bottom of the duffel, however, he found a small lump. Jude’s fingers closed over the rectangular metal object he hadn’t touched in months.

Pulling it out, he held it tight, unable to reason out the excitement and relief that washed over him. His reaction made no sense. The old Zippo wasn’t particularly valuable or even all that attractive to a collector. But he clung to the thing like a lifeline, suddenly assailed by a vision.

He leaned back in the squeaky vinyl chair so thoughtfully provided by the shitty motel and shook his last Marlboro out of the pack, narrowed eyes never leaving the screen of his laptop. He lifted his antique Zippo lighter from the corner of the scarred desk and stuck the cigarette between his lips.

He lit up and inhaled, letting the rich smoke curl through his lungs in a futile attempt to soothe his nerves, on a whole variety of levels.

There was a jackal in their midst, and he couldn’t reach Michael.

With a low, cynical laugh, he stubbed out the cigarette he hadn’t really wanted in the cheap plastic ashtray. The prickle on the back of his neck warned him that the joyless screw he’d indulged in last night could very well be the unremarkable period on the end of an otherwise exciting life. And if so, he wanted to know why, nosy, self-destructive bastard that he was.